Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition Completely Abandons GFWL

From Software is going all-in on Steamworks support for Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition on PC. The company recently made it known that they are officially moving away from Games For Windows Live and they're taking the save games, achievements and multiplayer from the mostly forgotten DRM service and moving it into the newer, fresher service.

“We're pleased to announce that next month it will be possible for players to migrate their Dark Souls: Prepare to Die games, saves and achievements from the Games for Windows Live platform to Steam.

“Games for Windows Live users will be able to redeem their Games for Windows Live Tokens on Steam to get Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition at no additional cost. (To find your Games for Windows Live Token, please head to the support webpage: http://bit.ly/1t6kfvm)

Next month the transition will be made available for users to move over their save games and achievements from Games For Windows Live to Steam.

For those who don't know, Games For Windows Live was originally pegged to shutdown this year on July 1st, according to an announcement made last year involving other services shutting down, including Age of Empires Online and the Games For Windows Marketplace.

Most people were hoping that Games For Windows Live would shutdown since it has been a bane to the gaming community after support for it seemed sparse. In fact, as news spread that Games For Windows Live was shutting down, the only thing we had from Microsoft was radio silence.

It wasn't until July 1st was fast approaching did Microsoft finally state that they would not be completely pulling the plug on Games For Windows Live. A lot of gamers feared that titles that didn't convert from GFWL to Steamworks would be lost to the DRM service's blackhole when it shutdown. But thankfully Microsoft decided to keep up the servers for games that still require authentication.

The July 1st shutdown notice prompted a lot of gaming communities to step up and petition developers to move over their games from GFWL to Steamworks. A lot of the community just didn't trust Microsoft or their online service.

One of the games most requested to make the leap was Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. And today marks a monumental day for From Software acknowledging that they are moving the game over to Steam's service.

So far, there's been a slow migration of games moving from one platform to the next. It's an exodus from a service that many gamers saw as anti-consumer and obtrusive. It is true that there's no real benefit to having Games For Windows Live as a middle-man anymore; it just doesn't add any kind of functional service or benefit to the end-user.

They're planning on announcing the exact start dates for the migration soon. Just know that it all takes place this November.